


There's This Thing

by Twelve (Dodici)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, fake date, it's just a bunch of fluff with a cherry on top, killua's blood pressure is a major character, whale island, writober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 03:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21237215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dodici/pseuds/Twelve
Summary: Maybe Gon doesn't really have a crystal-clear idea of what makes a proper date, but, if Killua is there, he’s at least sure that it’s going to be good.





	There's This Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Gon’s pov is a nightmare, how can a character be simultaneously a kid genius, the most i n t e n s e person ever, a radical dumbass and the human version of my neighbor Totoro I can't--  
Meanwhile, my English is still awkward.

Killua is burning hot, like when he eats too many spicy noodles.

“Okay, jeez, I’ll do it,” he says, blushing so hard it’s a miracle his hair didn’t catch fire on the spot. “It’s no big deal, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, no big deal,” Gon says, and nods because it really looks like Killua needs to be reassured about that. And, anyway, it is! No big deal!

It’s just… It felt so natural to ask, but maybe Gon did make a mistake – another one in the list full of really big, awful mistakes he did towards Killua during the last couple of years. 

He was just so happy he came back to visit him, he doesn’t want to ruin everything acting like a dumbass. 

“So, what…” Killua starts, swallowing. “I mean, what should we…”

“Oh, nothing bad! Actually,” Gon says, “nothing that much different than what we usually do? Just… We go out, together.”

“Sure,” Killua says, like he’s taking mental notes about this whole thing – like he needs a plan, because Gon knows that Killua always has a plan, which is awesome when they have to do the kind of dangerous things they usually do – they used to do, that is. 

“You don’t have to worry at all!” he feels compelled to say, he almost knocks off his lemonade and aunt Mito scolds him from the other room like she’s sensed an impending catastrophe. “I’ll make sure that you have fun, too! Everybody always said that I’m great at arranging dates, you know?”

For some reason, this seems to make Killua’s face go from red to a very deep, grey shade. 

“What are you two up to?” Alluka asks, popping out from the door and looking lovely in the half knitted red poncho Abe is working on these days. 

“Nothing!” Killua barks, but Gon has already started speaking. 

“Killua has agreed to come out for a date with me!” he says and her eyes are so big, have they always been so big?

“A date,” she repeats, squinting as she shifts her attention onto Killua himself.

“It’s a fake date,” Killua says, voice uncharacteristically flat. “To scare tourists away.”

“I usually get to show lots of people around the island during summertime, but I don’t want them to interfere with your visit, so we’re going for a stroll down at the docks to let them know that I’m already taken!”

Alluka watches him like his voice is coming from an old, broken radio. She then blinks twice and turns towards Killua. 

They share some kind of telepathy at this point and Gon would be envious of it if it wasn’t also the most endearing thing ever, to see Killua so open with someone – even if that someone isn’t Gon himself. 

Whatever it is that their minds tell to each other, it makes Killua growl until he ends up hiding his head inside his arms. And his lemonade does fall down, the exact same moment aunt Mito comes back with an empty basket to collect the laundry and an already resigned expression on her face. 

*

It’s especially simple, like most of the things that happen on Whale Island are.

“And you’re together? What a cute couple,” says Ingrid, who’s eighty-five and almost blind. Gon isn’t sure she has actually grasped the whole situation, but she definitely understood enough to draw conclusions. 

“I’m really sorry, but I’ll have to spend time with Killua today. I can’t really show you around this time.”

“It’s fine, sonny,” Ingrid says. “You go and have fun with your sweetheart. Buy yourselves an ice-cream. Here,” she adds, and she’s already fishing inside her giant purse.

“Oh, no, please, we don’t...” He has to take the coins she’s putting inside his palm. There’s also an old, crumpled receipt and a chestnut too. “Thanks.” Gon says, at loss for words.

“You’re really welcome, the both of you.” And then she’s already gone, small steps towards the dock, searching for some other volunteer for her tour. 

Gon sighs hard before turning to Killua. He’s gaping at Ingrid’s back and he has to blink a couple times before centering himself again. 

“You’re right. They’re everywhere,” he says, incredulous. He really didn’t believe it – maybe it’s a bit weird, Gon never really thought about it that much.

“Told you. It’s summertime,” he says. “And I’m the one who knows the island best, or so all the villagers say.”

Killua is still frowning like he’s expecting to be jumped at every corner, which is silly and also kind of heartbreaking, because the village is so peaceful right now, with people lazily walking by under a lukewarm mid-afternoon sun.

“So, are these people all old women?”

“Well, Ingrid is pretty old, but I guess they’re all older than me. It’s not like many young people ever come here… And, anyway, apparently women are the most inclined to accept to be showed around by a kid. Men usually get here with a map and then we have to pick ‘em up when they’ve already got lost in the forest.”

Killua nods, dumbstruck. 

“Yeah, men can be pretty dumb.”

“You’re a man and you’re not dumb,” Gon says, smiling, and that makes Killua go redder than before. 

“You too,” he says, but looking definitely like he’d like to bury his face behind his hands. He does it a lot and Gon isn’t sure if that too it’s his fault or if Killua’s just pretty stressed out on his own. He looks way more stressed than when they used to travel together, probably because of his family as usual; maybe because, without Nen, Gon can’t really fend for himself – that’s a very likely Killua-thought, actually.

Gon thought that this whole thing would have helped him relax and take his mind off stuff instead, but maybe he’s just complicated things once again.

It’s summer, though, and Killua got there to have fun, not to get depressed with him about Nen and worry about potential impending catastrophes. 

There’s a bell singing down towards the beach, over the swinging profile of the last ferry boat. 

“It’s the ice-cream truck,” Gon says, and he’s already grasped at Killua’s hand, trying to squeeze his own enthusiasm through it. “Let’s go get one, Killua!”

*

The hand stays there, which is pretty nice in Gon’s opinion, and also pretty useful because then they meet the entire group of nuns that Gon used to take to the old sanctuary down to the caves. They look at them like they’re a couple of aliens, but they don’t ask Gon to take them places.

“So, nuns,” Killua says over his cone, when the nuns are already walking away looking like a vivacious group of chatting mussels under their black veils. He studies them until they’ve turned around the wavering prow of the ferry, leaving the dock Gon and Killua are sitting on finally empty. “Are really these the dates you were talking about back then?”

Gon’s trying not to let his popsicle melt on his wrist. He frowns, feet that look just a couple centimeters over the water but they aren’t really, it’s just that here on Whale Island water seems always ready to swallow everything up, sprinkling all with salt and humidity.

“Back then?” he asks, uncertain. 

“You said it,” Killua insists. “I mean, it’s been years, it’s okay if you don’t remember.” But it really looks like it means quite a lot to him, intense gaze and cheeks still red – is it because of the wind? It’s difficult, with Killua, because he gets flustered a lot but Gon is pretty much at loss as for why at least ninety-nine percent of the times. “You said you dated women. You said they showed you _stuff_.”

Gon frowns. When was that? He really can’t remember and that means that it was probably during that whole chimera ant problem – the whole Kite thing – because during the last couple years he’s learned that he finds difficult to recall bits from that period; every time he tries to really think about it, it’s like something inside his head swings and blurs, making difficult to piece his memories together in a way that makes actual sense.

“I guess,” he answers, vague. “I mean, I showed them around, so they taught me stuff as a compensation I think.”

“_Stuff_,” Killua repeats, eyes big and hair messy in the wind.

“Yeah, like, stuff from the city. Good manners and the like, how to treat a lady properly… Is something wrong, Killua?”

Killua seems conflicted between finishing his ice-cream or just give up and splatting it on his forehead instead.

“Fine. Everything is fine,” he says, so flat that it almost gets lost under the seagull’s loud screeches. “How does one treat a lady properly?” he adds, puzzled.

Gon blinks, looking at his popsicle. 

“Oh, it’s actually pretty simple, they made it sound super specific at the time, but it’s pretty much like you would treat anyone that you like spending time with. Would you like me to show you?”

Killua shrugs, ice-cream wobbling.

“If you insist,” he says and Gon starts to think that maybe he’s done something right for a change. 

*

The whole package consists of touring around the island and be sure to ask if Killua needs anything and if he’s having fun. Since that’s Killua, though, they also end up making a race out of their supposed romantic stroll on the rocky beach and then a tour to the game shop happens; they end up buying a very old combat game on a sale because “it isn’t acceptable” that Gon never played it – they get distracted, they buy another ice-cream and then a pack of bird seeds to get attacked by the seagulls while they brainstorm what to have for dinner.

There aren’t that many restaurants in Whale Island and the pub isn’t exactly the most romantic of all, so Gon chooses to buy half a dozen paper cones full of fried squids and potatoes that they juggle from each other as they return toward the beach to watch the sunset. That’s a requirement of romantic dates, to bring the person someplace where there’s something beautiful to watch together.

“It must be something beautiful or interesting, but not too distracting. The person must still be the focus of your attention, you can’t go to the movies and then ignore them in the dark for two hours,” he explains, because Killua is looking at him like he’s speaking another language, which is silly because Killua is way smarter than Gon has ever felt, so he was sure that he would have known all this stuff and even more.

Usually, Gon would have laid a towel on the sand and rocks to make the ground more comfortable, but Killua is already seated, looking at him like he’s a dumbass – and also a dumbass who’s keeping his dinner hostage. 

“So, this is what a date looks like,” he says, when they’ve hastily decimated the content of all the cones while scaring belligerent seagulls off with loud, creepy screeches and even louder laughter.

“Yeah!” Gon says, and he’s still smiling, squids still puffing his cheeks, until he does realize something like a sparkle inside his brain. “You never went on a date before, Killua?”

Killua’s eyes are always so big, crystal-clear like the sea when it jumps over the rocks and gets trapped there, sloshing around reflecting the sky. 

“Yeah. I told you that too,” he adds, with a little bit of resentment. “I used to train all the time and then I traveled with you and now I’m traveling with Alluka, so…”

“That’s no good!” Gon says, and he means it even if Killua’s face scrunches up with doubt. “You deserve a super nice real date, I should definitely take you on one!”

Instead of looking happy at the prospect, Killua seems ready to strangle him on the spot. The sky has started to burn flaming red in his eyes too.

“I mean, only if you want. I don’t want to do anything that you don’t like or-“

“Gon,” he starts, both fists on the ground, grip strong as if they were limpets. “You took me on a date right now.”

“Oh,” Gon says, and frowns. “But it was a fake date, not a proper date.”

Killua is going to strangle him today. Knowing him, it will probably be swift and fast and smooth, from the moment Gon’s breaths his last breath to the moment his body is dispatched. 

“What. Is. The. Difference,” Killua says, frustrated and now visibly more inclined to kill himself than Gon – which is way more dangerous and worrying, really. “I don’t think you know what a date is, Gon.”

“Of course I know,” he says, because he does. He had people show him. “Maybe _you_ don’t know, since you never went on one.”

Killua is ready to protest, mouth open and finger raised – until he’s not, and his gaze shifts unfocused over his own knees. 

“Okay, so. But then,” he asks, and it’s not the sunset: it’s just his face that’s burning, red in splotches over his cheeks. “What’s the difference with everything we usually do!”

Gon frowns.

“You mean, you and me?”

“Yes, Gon, you and me,” he says, and there’s an edge of growling frustration in his voice. “You know, you and me going places and eating together and sharing dessert and watching the sunset or whatever and _hugging_ and-“

The ocean is so loud when it crashes on the rocks that it sounds like the sky is blazing for real, rustling as if it was a giant fireplace. 

“You’re right,” he says, blinking. “I guess we already did everything that people who dates do.”

“Awesome,” Killua says, after a brief, inconclusive pause. “And what the fuck does it _mean_.”

Gon never really thought about it that way – he never thought that it ought to mean something, for him and Killua to do the same things he used to do on dates and more, so much more. Sharing meals and baths and falling asleep and waking up, limbs entangled and that feeling of comfort and _rightness_ inside the stomach. 

“There’s this thing,” he says, and his throat is pretty dry despite the humid, salty taste on his tongue. “It’s something you’re supposed to do during or at the end of a date, if you like, but I’ve never done it before. I mean, not properly.”

“What,” Killua croaks, and Gon would like to hug him more than anything else, right now, but he shifts to put all his weight on one wrist and rest the other hand on Killua’s shoulder instead, so that he can look at him properly in the eyes, aligned. 

He breathes through the nose, because he remembers someone telling him that one time she started suffocating during the thing, and then places his mouth over Killua’s mouth, head shifting slightly on one side to avoid crushing both their noses. 

“This,” he says then, so close it’s like Killua’s lips are still there, soft and panting and smelling of calamari and salt. “This we hadn’t done already.”

If he’d slapped him, Killua would have looked way less surprised. 

Instead, he swallows.

“Oh, yeah, that we hadn’t done already,” he repeats, flustered.

“That was a kiss,” Gon says, to be a little bit more explicit. “Was it alright?”

Once again, Killua doesn’t strangle him. He doesn’t pick up his heart with his claws and he doesn’t throw him off the beach to drown him – they all look a lot like accomplishments.

He does fists his hand on the fabric of Gon’s shirt instead, grasping at it like a lifeline while his face collides over Gon’s once again, more forceful and with something that must be enthusiasm. 

Gon closes his eyes, ready for the impact, and if that isn’t the literal definition of alright he doesn’t really know what it is.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m killing myself over Writober2019. This fic fills the prompt #fake boyfriend from the pumpFic list by[ Fanwriter.it.](https://twitter.com/fanwriterit)


End file.
